While the story of the Port of Cleveland actually goes back to the days Moses Cleaveland and the city’s founding on the banks of the Cuyahoga River in 1796, it wasn’t until more than 36 years later when the Ohio and Erie Canal was finished that commerce really began.
Goods shipped from points east like Pittsburgh, New York and even Europe flowed through the 308-mile-long canal and into America’s heartland. Cleveland also quickly became a convenient stopover port for Great Lakes ships on their way to Detroit, Chicago and other ports west.
Fast forward 127 years.
With the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959, Cleveland once again had the opportunity to claim a major stake in the international goods coming up the seaway into the heartland. As the 1960s progressed, so did shipping through the Port of Cleveland. But the St. Lawrence Seaway hit a peak around 1970, right at the dawn of globalization and containerization in shipping.
Some say it was because the St. Lawrence had to shut down in winter. Others speculate that it was the size of the locks on the seaway that limited the size of ships that could pass. Still others think it was a lack of government interest, not fully understanding the benefit of attracting ocean carriers, nor the companies that operated the ships.
Whatever the cause, international shipping dwindled across the Great Lakes.
“So we went from an era where we had 40 shipping lines or more coming into the Great Lakes, but that eventually shrank down to only a handful,” says William Friedman, president and CEO of the Port of Cleveland. “The range of commodities we handled went from being diverse down to a number of cargo types that are consistently moving in and out of the Great Lakes. The good news is that our port maintained its market share of those cargos coming in from Europe, like steel.”
The better news is that, thanks to a successful program started in the 2014 shipping season called the Cleveland-Europe Express, the Port of Cleveland could once again become a regional nexus for international shipping, moving both containerized and noncontainerized cargo between the Great Lakes and Europe through the Port of Antwerp. The port’s vessel partner, the Spliethoff Group, has immediate connections from Antwerp into Russia, Finland, Spain, the United Kingdom and the Baltic States, which, of course, leads to the world beyond.
Driving an Economy, Protecting an Environment
Make no mistake, the Port of Cleveland is not only vital to the city, but also the region and state — perhaps all of the Midwest. Despite the adverse economic impact of COVID-19, cargo traffic at the port remained relatively stable during the 2020 shipping season. The Port of Cleveland handles 13.5 million tons of cargo annually. It has an annual impact of $3.5 billion and supports more than 20,000 jobs.
“The Cleveland Cuyahoga Port Authority plays an important role in the economy of both Cleveland and the entire region,” says Edward Rybka, chief of regional development for the city of Cleveland. “The Port Authority supports a significant maritime operation that includes an international container shipping service which supports many businesses and jobs in the area.”
“The port has been doing great work and is very critical to our entire region,” adds Armond Budish, Cuyahoga County executive. “It is also expanding its role. The Cleveland-Europe Express has gone well. It was a calculated risk that has paid off, and it is looking at ways to expand its efforts to become a real active port city, which benefits companies here, as well as jobs.
“I spent eight years in Columbus as a part of the state legislature. Columbus has made itself into a logistics center, and it doesn’t have half of the resources that we have,” says Budish.
That fact is not lost on those involved with community and economic development.
“Unlike some other counties in our state that claim to have a port, because there is state enabling legislation that allows a port authority to issue bonds for construction projects, we actually have a waterfront port,” says Joe Roman, outgoing president and CEO of Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP). “There are not that many deep-water ports on the Great Lakes.”
Like other port authorities across Ohio, the Port of Cleveland issues bonds for important construction projects, such as its recent agreement to issue up to $75 million in taxable bonds for the construction of the Artisan, a planned apartment tower located on the edge of University Circle.
“We are heavily engaged in economic development in several ways, but one of the most important is through the issuance of bonds,” says Friedman. “We have issued bonds for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Flats East Bank through Eaton’s Corporate Headquarters, the Cleveland Museum of Art and many of the hotels and apartment building that have been built.”
The port is also a partner with most of the major economic and community development organizations across the area. It is partnering with GCP, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD), the city, county and Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority on the Greater Cleveland Civic Connection, a partnership that is advancing the city’s waterfront and what the organization calls “our blue economy.”
“The team at the Port of Cleveland truly understands the importance of infrastructure investment in Northeast Ohio, and we’re proud to consider them a key strategic partner,” says Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, CEO of NEORSD. “Irishtown Bend’s redevelopment is a great example of many organizations joining forces to not only solve a local problem, but do so with a regional solution.”
As a part of its Cuyahoga River oversite, the port is leading an engineering and public improvement initiative to stabilize the Irishtown Bend hillside along the river, says Rybka.
“The hillside is currently not stable. If the hillside should collapse, the river would be shut to shipping impacting thousands of jobs up river,” Rybka says. “Once stabilized, the plan is to create a large public park on the hillside providing the public with further access to the water.”
In addition to this future green space, the Port Authority developed and manages the 80-plus-acre Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve. This large open space was created throughout decades from materials dredged from the river and Cleveland Harbor. In 2020, more than 38,000 people visited the Nature Preserve. This location has become a favorite for bird watchers, a growing recreational activity.
The port is also expanding use of the docks by attracting a growing cruise ship industry with an increasing number of cruise lines, making the Port of Cleveland a stopping point and bringing visitors to Cleveland, adds Rybka.
“Shipping and recreational boating is further supported through the Port Authority’s management of the harbor and the Cuyahoga River navigation channel,” he says. “The Port Authority operates a dredge processing facility adjacent to Burke Airport that allows the Army Corp of Engineers to dredge the river and Cleveland Harbor.”
While it would seem that the port has more than enough on its operational plate already, it is the Cleveland-Europe Express that holds the biggest promise for future growth.
“It is the first containerized shipping service in and out of the Great Lakes for probably 30 years or more,” says Friedman. “While it is still rather modest in size, it shows the world that we can handle containers here. We’re hoping to add to that this year by getting some new connections going and offering more container shipping for companies in our area.”
Like any major economic or logistical business development, there are both impediments to its creation and natural advantages to its implementation. For the latter, one needs to merely look at a map.
If someone is at all cartographically inclined, it’s easy to see that Cleveland, the largest deep-water port on the Great Lakes, has a definite geographic advantage over ports such as Detroit or Chicago. Heading up to Detroit actually takes goods farther away from east-west rail lines, while shipping west to Chicago means circumnavigating the big mitten that is that state up north.
Add to that the fact that the Port of Cleveland is served directly by CSX and Norfolk Southern rail carriers and has easy access to north-south and east-west major highways, all of the elements of modern intermodal logistics are all tied together. So this should really be a slam dunk, right?
Not so fast, warns Friedman.
“While you are taking a page out of our marketing brochure, there are still challenges,” says Friedman. “There is a lot of inertia that we are trying to overcome. And there is a lot of competition.”
It turns out that trying to change the practices of international shipping lines is like trying to turn an ore freighter — it takes a lot of time.
“Whenever you have a lot of status quo in the market and incumbents in an industry that has very established patterns such as ours, it is always very difficult to get in and start something new,” says Friedman. “Our business is dominated by large ocean carriers and big railroads. They are making the choices when it comes to choosing ports. And the companies that use their services for shipping are indifferent as long as the cargo shows up where it is supposed to be and on time.”
There also are only a handful or maybe 10 major companies at the most, and they have aligned themselves into global alliances where they share space on each other’s ships.
It’s all about getting the word out, says Friedman, which is something the port is already doing through its marketing campaign. However, recent events and emerging “pinch points” in international shipping routes and ports may be opening opportunities. Take the recent blockage of the Suez Canal by the giant container ship Ever Given.
That’s just one, but perhaps the clearest example of the growing pressure on global supply chains and ports, which could open an opportunity for the Port of Cleveland.
“There is a lot of congestion and unprecedented problems in container shipping right now,” says Friedman. “Our ports are very backed up, especially on the West Coast. And that is starting to roll up the East Coast and to other places.”
The COVID-19 pandemic created a lull in shipping, which has now become a resurgence. Ports and carriers have been caught by surprise, creating a ripple effect that has slowed recovery by the industry. While it has allowed many shipping lines to increase fees adding to balance sheets, it has not been good for companies in the Midwest that are trying to move goods in and out.
“So avoiding that congestion in Los Angeles or New York City is actually a key selling point right now,” adds Friedman.
So would Cleveland ever become a full-fledged international shipping port like New York, Savannah or Miami, handling millions of containers a year?
Not likely, says Friedman.
“But I do see us becoming a port where we are handling maybe 100,000 containers per year or more,” says Friedman. “Ideally, we would create a connection right here in Cleveland where you could get your container onto a ship, and then get onto the international shipping network. We would become a feeder operation into a hub port in Canada or on the Atlantic Seaboard.”
Markets like Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Youngstown and Toledo would feed containers of cargo into the Port of Cleveland, where they would get on a vessel and effectively go anywhere in the world.
“Or vice versa, companies could import from anywhere in the world here,” adds Freidman. “Think of our city and port having spokes that extend out all across the Midwest.”
The impact on our local economy, jobs and companies would be profound. That’s why it’s so important for the government and businesses to get behind the Port of Cleveland’s efforts.